Bay Area book lovers, book writers, booksellers, book editors and book publicists are, by now, splashing around in the Litquake pool, spread out all over town through its Saturday, Oct. 20, LitCrawl closing. Last week’s Thursday, Oct. 11, opening was celebrated with a party at the University Club on Nob Hill, providing the literati with the opportunity to hold hands and dive into that pool.

I touched base with Chronicle book editor John McMurtrie the morning after, but we hadn’t seen each other at the party. This is a good sign for such an event: Everyone was so involved in conversation with old and new pals that they barely scanned the room.

In fact, Litquake founders Jane Ganahl and Jack Boulware, who were going to make a few formal welcoming remarks, wisely canned that plan. As the crowd of people having a good time surged around us, Ganahl made an astute assessment of the need for an oration: “It’s like, why?”

Some of this intense merriment may have had to do with writers’ affinity for beverages. Wine was served, but hard drinks at the bar were $14. There were a few guests, however, who slaked their own thirsts.

Noir man Eddie Muller was packing a flask, and Kevin Hunsanger of Green Apple Books was carrying absinthe from the Val de Travers region of Switzerland, “a little bit of Swiss moonshine ... a little bottle of discretion.” He said the next day he’d been a fan for a long time, beginning when there was still a worldwide ban:

“I guess the lure of the taboo always sort of had my interest.”

It was a sparkling night with Joshua Brody playing piano and the doors open to the balcony, where guests had a perfect view of the glimmering blue Jim Campbell light sculpture atop Salesforce Tower. I read on Mary Ladd’s Wig Report blog the next day that the night’s biggest talking topic was a lawsuit that had been filed by writer Stephen Elliott against Moira Donegan, who’d created a “S—ty Media Men List” on which his name had appeared.

At the party, however, I hadn’t heard anything about that. I was busy admiring the purse carried by the Believer’s Vintage Tech columnist, Alexandra Szerlip. It had been molded from an old Underwood typewriter.

Sure, literature is all about civilization, and sure, the #MeToo movement, heart of the Elliott lawsuit, is all about lack of civilization. Those are important things. But one can’t just ignore an amusing handbag.

P.S.: On Saturday night at Strut, a sexual health and wellness center on Castro Street, Virgie Tovar, author of “You Have the Right to Remain Fat” and Daniel Handler, author of “All the Dirty Parts” were in a Litquake conversation described in the schedule as about “body image and sex and the challenges of writing about them.”

“Bodies and What to Do With Them” was a serious conversation, but the writers are friends, their affection for each other was obvious, and their plans for this session included humor. So when the crowd walked in, the two writers were seated at a small table strewn with candy, and they were eating noodles from carry-out food containers. There was discussion of fat phobia and body image ... and at one point, Tovar, whose laugh is something like a fortissimo rendering of the “Ode to Joy,” asked, “Can you repeat the start of that question? I was thinking about the noodles.”

The 2018 YBCA 100 list recognizes, according to the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, “100 people, organizations and movements that are using their platforms to create change and move society forward.”

Some honorees are well-known: actress Glenn Close, for founding a mental health nonprofit, for example, and the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who became advocates for gun control after a shooting at their school. There’s at least one whimsical character, Marlon Bundo, the “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo” children’s book hero created by TV host John Oliver — a contrast to “Marlon Bundo’s A Day in the Life of the Vice President,” written by the daughter of Vice President Mike Pence about the second family’s pet bunny named Marlon Bundo.

And there’s Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, cited for using “his athletic platform to further conversations around gun control, national-anthem protests and more.”

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING

“I have a pretty big appetite for mediocrity.”

Man contemplating new books at the Berkeley Public Library, overheard by Gail Machlis

Leah Garchik washed up on the shores of Fifth and Mission in 1972, began her duties as a part-time temporary steno clerk, and ascended the journalistic ladder. Over the years, she has served as writer, reviewer, editor and columnist. She is the author of two books, “San Francisco: Its Sights and Secrets” and “Real Life Romance."

She is an avid knitter, a terrible accordion player, a sporadic tweeter and a pretty good speller.